Quattro Adventure
System: NES
Release Date: 1991
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Camerica
Genre: Compilation
Try to give the impression of offering more bang for the buck with Quattro Adventure! Camerica doesn’t like Nintendo and their ways, so they’ve created an unlicensed games compilation. There are four adventures for you to take part in and they certainly vary in their quality and playability. The opening menu allows you to choose from four games. Let’s give each game a paragraph and leave it at that.
We’ll start with Boomerang… wait… Super Robin Hood? I am imbued with confidence after this… The goal of this adventure is to collect all the treasures around Nottingham Castle and save Maid Marian. Rubin jumps with the A Button and readies his bow by holding the B Button. There are a lot of guards that you’ll need to kill, while avoiding their arrows. Getting to the treasures in each area revolves around locked areas that are opened by keys, but also by secret passageways. There are several of them hidden all about. Fire breathing gargoyles want nothing but to kill you. Moving platforms make precision jumping a necessity. Some enemies are immune to your arrows, meaning they must be avoided, which requires timing. There’s a lot of trial and error involved in making your way through the castle. I got to the last batch of treasures before I got myself stuck in a room and called it quits.
Linus Spacehead is up next. Our hero has crashed his new space car deep into the drink of planet Earth. Now, he must go through eight levels of platforming action to collect the pieces of his interstellar radio so he can call for a ride to get him away. Linus has some atrocious momentum based movements and jumps. The number of times I was launched off a platform because I couldn’t stop blew my mind. Time travel is a necessity for this adventure, because 20 minutes of work will by wiped out in a moment. Pieces of candy are scattered about and collecting five of them adds a free guy to your stock. Remember, when you get hit by something that doesn’t kill you, it knocks you backward, so face away from the direction you want to go if you’re about to get hit. The cloud level is atrocious, because you fall through them if you’re not jumping and jumping puts you into the path of birds that want to murder you.
Boomerang Kid is a single screen puzzle game. You have to find a way to collect all the boomerangs spinning on the screen and then make it to the exit before time runs out. This is easier said than done because of how the kid controls. The first issue is that falling from too high of a height means death. The next issue is that you fall straight down, so you can’t angle yourself to a platform beneath you, instead, you have to jump, which moves in an arc that you can easily miscalculate. After winning a level, you can choose which one to take on next. You move from the outback to castles to caverns. While the outback is pretty straightforward, the castle introduces moving platforms, disintegrating platforms, switches, and hidden boomerangs. I made it to the caves and called it quits.
Treasure Island Dizzy is last and it is similar to the Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, but obviously came first. You’re the sentient egg once again and you have been separated from your Yolkfolk. You need to repair a boat and collect 30 coins to win this adventure. The gimmick you have to be careful of is you’ve got one life to live and then it’s back to the beginning. Be in the water without a snorkel and you’re dead. Walk beneath a cage and you’re dead. Touch some candles that look like the background and you’re dead. Touch a bee and you’re wait, why am I moonwalking? And did that one just become a coin? Not all coins are placed obviously and require you to press the B Button to uncover, or touch the right enemy. I got stuck underwater and anything I could pick up would drop my snorkel and kill me so I bailed.
Graphics: 1.5
Everything ranges from okay to not very good.
Sound: 1.5
I’ll give credit that I think they tried to make a soundtrack, but the execution is flawed.
Gameplay: 1.0
All the games control poorly and are pretty shallow in the grand scheme of things.
Difficulty: 1.0
Super Robin Hood was more polished than the rest of the games, but even then that’s not saying much.
Fun Factor: 1.0
If you like solving puzzles, you may get some enjoyment here, but not much.
Overall Rating: 1.2
Quattro Adventure earns a D+. There’s so many little things wrong with these games that had they been fixed, these all could have been playable. But they’re not.